


Blood in the water

by Kes



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Asgard, Gen, Other, Post Avengers Asgard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kes/pseuds/Kes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>If you can make God bleed, people will cease to believe in him. There will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come.</em>
</p><p>Asgard's defences relied upon the Bifrost channelling dark energy away, monopolising interrealm travel in the vicinity unless the traveller was skilled and within, but with the Bifrost gone, it is only a matter of time before Asgard's many  enemies discover the weakness. Meanwhile, Jane, Erik and Darcy arrive in Asgard for a research trip, and ordinary Asgardians go about their lives. All this will be shattered, however, by the arrival of an attack force that not only lands in the centre of the palace, but also broadcasts the shattered defences across the Nine Realms.</p><p>Occupies roughly the same area in time as Thor II probably will, so functions as canon-divergent, although it utilises some of the images we have seen. Follows the vague Phase II idea of deconstruction of heroism.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Oh my god, I wish I could post this on facebook.”

Jane only shot an irritated look at the younger woman as she juggled six measuring instruments, a suitcase, a rucksack, a notebook, and the last commercial coffee she was likely to get for several weeks. “Take this, get a dark energy reading from the bridge, Thor, here’s a camera, get some snapshots of the constellations, I’ll get proper ones when I can get my good camera set up but I want them now.” There was no need to tell Erik what to do; he had his own equipment out, and a look of utter wonder on his face. “This is great, this is fantastic,” she murmured, pressing buttons and writing down results as quickly as she could get them. Here, surrounded by living proof that she was right, she felt bigger than her skin.

The journey to the huge golden tower passed hazily, because these stars were not Earth’s stars and she was really, truly in another corner of the universe. “Once you have been greeted by Asgard, you will have all the time you require for study,” Thor said. She looked at him and realised he had been staring at her, looking almost as awestruck as she felt. A wave of pure happiness struck her and she laughed, fingers tingling with it. The back of her mind was making connections, drawing conclusions already.

Later, Thor came himself to bring her an Asgardian dress that fit perfectly. He looked a bit sheepish. “I know that you would rather have begun investigations, but... I am sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine, and meeting your mother can’t go worse than meeting Don’s.” On tiptoe, she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“What happened?”

“I forgot her name, fell over and spilled curry all over half the people in the restaurant,” she said and burst into peals of laughter, though normally the memory mortified her. “Do you guys have curry?”

“I do not think so, but Volstagg would love you to introduce it.”

The dress was nice, a tawny affair set with red stones that glittered in a cascade from the shoulders, but very stiff. “Do you mind turning around for a minute while I get changed? I’d go in the bathroom, but...” Asgardian facilities would take some getting used to. She, Erik and Darcy had rooms near the royal family, but they shared a long toilet and a large communal bath between them.

He looked confused for a moment, but turned, and she began to get changed, noting as he did that he was wearing a very similar design of armour to that he’d worn in New Mexico, all that time ago. For a moment she amused herself with thoughts of changing fashion and ‘those cape shoulders are so last season, your Highness,’ and found herself saying, “By that being how you normally look, I never expected you’d mean it for dinner parties as well.”

:::

Thor escorted the three of them through the tower, slowly because Erik was struggling not to trip on his robes. Apparently they were the standard dress of a wise man, but he looked distinctly uncomfortable. They met Sif and the Warriors Three at the High Hall door, and Jane exchanged a grin with her. “Nice to meet you again.”

“At a better time, too. Did you get your work published?”

“Yeah, I did! But there’s a load of guys who probably stole their doctoral theses from their students ripping it apart in every journal there is...”

“They’re wrong. You’re right.”

“Yeah, but... yeah, they’re douchebags. Why are we waiting here, by the way?”

“We must make a formal entrance,” Thor answered, looking a bit distant.

Fandral clapped him on the back. “I remember when you wouldn’t even arrive until your father was angry.”

“Is he here?”

There was a long silence, which Darcy broke. “Do we have to have each other’s arms or something?”

Bowing, Fandral replied, “If you wish, fair lady.” Jane grinned at Sif’s rolled eyes.

Eventually they got through the doors, were announced to the waiting mass of people who looked comfortable in their court clothes, and were met by a smiling woman with what might have been the best hairstyle in the galaxy. “My mother Frigga, Queen of Asgard,” Thor said, and she smiled.

“Welcome to Asgard,” she said, her voice soft, and kissed Jane on the cheek. “My son speaks very highly of you, and I am glad to meet you at last.”

After the initial formalities, it turned into a surprisingly convivial feast, with overblown stories galore. She hadn’t pegged Thor for a politician, but as they ate he proved surprisingly adept at shielding her from what were, apparently, the more dangerous elements of the court.

The evening wore on and people became drunk, including herself. Erik fell over twice and got into a brief fist fight before people remembered that he was mortal and fragile, she lost Darcy in the crowd, Fandral’s stories became increasingly impossible, Thor sidled away to talk to his mother and Volstagg flopped down heavily on the bench next to her. “Look over there. That’s my wife Gudrun. Most wonderful woman in the Nine Realms.” He thought for a second. “Present company excepted.”

Jane smiled. “No, I believe she’s wonderful.” The woman was as large as her husband and had streaks of grey in her dark hair, and she was dancing with Hogun with a radiant grin on her face.

“And my daughter. She’s over there, with your Darcy. I am glad they’re making friends.”

Someone she didn’t know sat down next to Volstagg with a bellow of, “Volstagg, my splendid old friend!”

“Ari! They did not tell me you were back! Jane, this is Ari, Lord Collector of the West – Ari, Jane Foster of Midgard.”

Ari didn’t even look at her. “Come on, I need you to beat the bard in a story-telling contest,” he said, and towed Volstagg off. He shot her an apologetic look, but no more.

For a few minutes she was left alone with her own thoughts and the rather splendid hot spiced cider. It was somewhat more alcoholic than cider at home, and tasted more intensely of apples than anything she had drunk before. Thor, at least, was visible again, although he looked troubled by whatever he was talking about with Frigga and a man she didn’t know.

“I am surprised Thor remembered enough of his lessons to teach you to build an actual beacon,” said someone. “Yes, we all know about that – it was well done!”

She scowled at the blond young man sitting next to her. “Thor didn’t have to teach me that.”

“Oh, come on, it is nothing to be ashamed of, you've done well for someone from Midgard. Which do you like better, Asgard or Midgard?”

From his smug little smile, he was clearly assuming she’d say Asgard. Little shit. “Earth, of course. And I built every scrap of my equipment myself, from designs I did myself, from theories born and developed on Earth, by me amongst others. Thor was evidence for a theory I had already, converting it into knowledge, and what he told me and what I saw when your people started showing up in New Mexico gave me new material to work with, to get further. The beacon is my technology.”

The smile had vanished, but returned three-fold after a few seconds. “Nonsense. You will come to love Asgard more – have you seen anything so fine as this room?”

“Yes, actually. Plenty of times. Who are you, anyway?”

“Nefstein Ottarsson of Geirheim. Fandral’s brother.”

“Good to know. Excuse me, I was enjoying myself earlier,” she said, got up, and walked off unsteadily. Thor had vanished again, damn him. Instead, she made a beeline for Sif. “Where’s Thor?”

“I do not know.” Looking troubled, she moved them slightly away from the main crowd. “You must swear to breathe no word of this.”

“I swear.”

“I think there is a problem that he is not choosing to share with us, which worries me. Every time he sees his mother, they retreat to converse alone. I thought it would be different when you came, because he missed you so much, but...”

“Have I come at a really bad time?”

“I do not know.” The Asgardian was silent for a moment. “My father would have had me a symbolic leader of our house alone, sitting in councils and towers of learning and never in the field. I was never at home in the council chamber or speaking to the wise, and Thor even less so, but now he spends more time talking, often to the wise men, than anything else.”

“Talking can be pretty useful.”

That actually made Sif smile. “It is better than charging off on forbidden errands looking for battle, yes.”

:::

A scream brought Dagmar out of sleep in one swift movement. Inga again. She hurried around the bed to her daughter’s side and shook her until she stopped thrashing and her eyes opened. “Mother, I –”

“Hush. Come on, let’s get you a hot drink.” Gently she carried her into the kitchen and sat her on a bench with a blanket around her. As she put the pot on the fire, she asked, “Another dream?”

“Yes. Every time there are more cracks, and when it shattered there was fire.” The girl was shivering violently, her dark cheeks bloodless. “I feel nothing but an ache in my stomach, it’s like fear.”

Dagmar sat next to her and pulled her in. “You are in the safest place in the Nine Realms. No matter what the cracks mean, Asgard can beat any of those others – there is nothing to fear. And if the worse should happen, I swear that I will always be there. Always. I will not let anyone harm you.”

The only reply was tears on her shoulder.

Once Inga had gone back to bed, dosed with a herb tea to make her sleep without dreaming, Dagmar started pulling up the flagstones. The girl had been dreaming for years; sometimes it was small things, like a spillage of flour in the bakery, and sometimes it was more important. She had dreamed of falling for two weeks before her father Gunnar fell from the statue he was repairing, and on the last night of his life she had woken screaming thrice. If she now dreamed of cracks and woke screaming, her mother was going to be prepared.

Underneath the flagstones was a long trough. Quietly she began emptying it; the hard, tough leather tunic she laid aside for Inga, with the warhammer and the greaves. For herself, she took the folded blade. When they dressed in the morning, they would hide their weapons in their dresses.

:::

“My Queen, my Prince,” the small man said, bowing and sweating. Thor clamped down on his irritation and smiled.

“Speak, friend. Who are you?”

“Magni Laugasson, a simple merchant of Breidvag. I would seek audience with His Majesty regarding the brick trade.”

This was the fourth this evening, and Thor gave the response he had given the others. “My father is occupied with important affairs, but I will consider the issue myself.” When the man had scuttled off, he looked back to Frigga. “I would have Father tell me what the important affairs are.”

“Your father has many concerns,” she replied, but she was frowning.

“He has few that he does not tell either of us. When I saw him last, I had only lately brought Loki home.”

She laid her hand on his arm. “I have seen him since then, but not for a long time. You have done a good job.”

“Perhaps his purpose is to make me run the realm.”

“I don’t know; he is a complicated man, but I do not think he would not warn you.”

It was strange when he remembered that he had never had this trapped and helpless feeling until recently. Now, it felt like it had settled in to wrap itself around his guts and squeeze from time to time, making him want to curl up and hide in a corner. He made a fist and unclenched it, the word ‘coward’ ringing in his ears. Odin had once said that a leader should have conviction, should be able to make hard choices and live with them, and Thor sometimes wondered with a sick sense of failure whether it was really all about pretending, or if he was just doing it wrong.

And he’d brought Jane, Erik and Darcy into this as well. For a moment, on the bridge, it had all been worth it; Jane had looked at the sky, the world, the bridge, everything, and she had burned so brightly with eagerness and fascination and sheer wonder. It was as though she was diving into a new element that was hers so completely and absolutely that he wondered how she had ever lived before she touched the stars.

Then he had found himself back in the palace, and everything was wrong. He was trying to run Asgard and seemed to be lurching from one problem to the next, there was a sense of wrongness in the air, people whispered about backwardness, Midgard, and contamination, and he regretted everything. It wasn’t a new feeling. And now he was trying to talk through the delicate business of keeping Odin’s continued silence secret rather than attending to his guests. He looked over to where Jane was obviously giving Fandral’s brother a row, and felt guilty even as he admired her courage.

“I will need to tell them something different soon, or there will be rumours he is dead and we are hiding it.”

“It is too soon for another Odinsleep, and besides people would remember when he next has a true one. That he is busy with affairs that they are not important enough to know about will serve for a while longer, Thor, and I will think of another one by then.”

“Thank you.” Sif had told him, after Loki’s funeral, that he should make an effort to talk to – and listen to – his mother. He hadn’t wanted to, but he’d learned by then that doing only what he wanted led to disaster, and since he had learned as much from her as from Odin. “Once you told me that I would have the advantage Father never had, of you for a mother and... I did not realise what an advantage that was.”

“You’re my son. I will always help when and how I can.”

:::

The glimmering stuff was beginning to tear at the walls, and he snarled at it. The first handful twisted on easily, and then it was back to the same old routine – gather, pull, and twirl. Gather, pull, and twirl. Let the device spin. Send through the hole in the far wall. Gather, pull, and twirl.

Loki’s hands were raw from pulling at it. When he had complained, he was told that he should have thought of that before turning traitor, and he retorted, “This is Thor’s doing, not mine – if you truly wanted me to ‘atone,’ you should have sent me to Jotunheim.” The answer had been a question – did he want to be sheltered from his new-made enemies, who could find him at any point, or not?

He had bitten his tongue and worked faster.

Now, it was clear that it wasn’t working. No matter how well he and the device spun the dark energy together, there were always escaping wisps. What was coming through to him now would have already been through, already been trapped and spun and laid aside only to come apart.

He spared a second to push his hair out of his eyes. It was halfway down his chest now, and only sheer bloodymindedness had stopped him letting it tangle into a mat. The constant blue light was starting to hurt his eyes and give him pounding headaches every time he risked a nap; he was reaching his limits.

Hatred surged within him. If Thor had been able to see when someone was doing him a favour, if he hadn’t suddenly been struck with some kind of maternal feelings for those monsters, none of this would be happening. If that jumped-up spawn of some backwater moon who got a kick out of killing could just give things up, he could just stop, or sabotage this. But no, Odin had to dangle protection in front of him and keep him working constantly like some kind of thrall when it was obviously futile –

Reaching around the device, he left runes on the rope in green light. _It is hopeless._

There was no reply. Loki kept working.

:::

Antorith saw the signal from the other ship and called out, “Hold on!” He pulled the lever carefully and they turned downwards, plunging towards the planetoid. The journey had taken several days of finding and exploiting the little cracks in spacetime scattered all around Yggdrasill, and of the seven-force fleet that had set out, only two had reached their destination. He felt lucky to be among them, even if he resented the necessity to dive and dodge. Their allies could have sent them straight here, if they had dared.

Their destination was tiny. The loss of most of the force probably wouldn’t matter, then – they could not match their enemy man for man, but they could seriously inconvenience him. Such a small realm for such a people to have come from, he reflected. Seeing it from above really made it seem feeble. He reached out and braced himself for the impact with the defences – these ships were built to bore through them – but nothing happened.

His second met his eyes, looking bewildered. Slowly he returned his hands to the steering pole and looked out once more, to see the ground hurtling up towards them.

Someone screamed behind him as fire danced across the screen, retreated, and they found themselves a mere half-mile from the ground.

He pulled on the stick, but everything was sticky. A tower flashed by the screen, missed by inches, but they still fell.

With a sickening crunch, the ship crashed. A few seconds later, amid the pattering of falling rock, the ground shook.

Dark elves started hacking their way out of both ships, into a long pillared hall that was rapidly filling up with guards.


	2. Chapter 2

The sun was very nearly up and she really should be stoking up the fire, but she had numbers dancing in her head, runes scratched on the table, and she had to bring them together. This would be so much easier if it had been possible for her to get training.

Ever since Valka had married that awful man, there had been no time. Any moment now, he’d wake up and shatter her concentration, and this was the first time she’d been able to try for so long. The magic was crackly red the way she used it – she never could manage to make it shine truly blue – but it used to be easier to work with, she could swear it.  
It used to be that it was within reach and graspable, but now there were wisps of it floating everywhere and she couldn’t hold them. She kept searching. Numbers sleeted through her head and she thought herself outwards, asked the wind itself where the old ropes of it were. Nowhere. Nothing.

Turning back to the table, she scratched a circle in it with her fingernail and domed her hands over it, concentrating hard on Asgard. This little trick was a last resort, but she had been so proud to discover it. She lowered her hands, squeezed slightly, felt the winds of Asgard’s atmosphere on her hands – nothing. None of the old net that had covered them.

“Valka! Where’s my breakfast?”

Without thinking, she yelled back, “Silence!” and went back to carefully probing along her fingers. There it was – the old ways were unravelled, despoiled, but the magic still ended in the same place. Only now, rather than being bound in carefully, it spilled out again in a giant shimmering cloud. Like blood into water, she thought.

Something whistled past her mind, in the sky, powered by the blue light. She stood up so quickly that her chair fell over, called for her children, and ran. On her way out, she knocked the awful husband onto his back.

:::

Heimdall’s messenger had got there in time; Thor had the palace guards deployed under the Lady Sif’s command in the hall, and the prince himself waited with the Warriors Three to cut off the dark elves’ escape route.

It was scarcely believable – intruders shouldn’t be able to get into Asgard, the defences had been boosted after the jotnar got in. Drengur found his spear shaking in his hands. His father had never had to deal with this, and he desperately wished himself back in the training yards, so that it would be Father who had to stand here with guard-duty weapons facing off against two sleek metal rods full of dark elves. It was said that they sacrificed prisoners to their machines. His mouth went dry.

Part of the first rod crumbled and they started spilling out, ten, twenty, thirty of them. The battle began in the front ranks of the guards, and every scream made him feel sicker.  
Then someone was striking down towards him with a whirring thing and he leaped backwards into old Ragni. Ragni just managed to parry the thing in time and Drengur backed away – better the old man than him, he thought. The Lady Sif wasn’t looking this way, she was fighting about six of them without a thought to how unwomanly it was, and he slipped behind a pillar.

From there, he had a good view of the battle. A tall elf with a different kind of helmet, half of it in bright silver-white and the other a dark storm-grey colour, loosed blue light into the hall. Thor roared to meet him, and the battle was joined.

Despite being physically inferior, the dark elves were hurting the Asgardians. They would lose, but there were Asgardian bodies on the floor, and the tall one could almost match Thor. He looked away, towards the back of the hall, and met a pair of eyes.

The prince’s lady from Earth. He turned away and half-heartedly waved a spear at an elf as Harald caught it in the side, so that it looked like he had only taken a moment. What was she doing here, and her father too?

Drengur looked up just in time to see Thor crush the fancy helmet like a piece of tin, and knew the battle was won. Reassured, he joined in the last push to crush the elves between the Warriors Three guarding their metal ships and the main body of the guards, and then it was over. A great cry of congratulations went up.

:::

“It runs on dark energy,” Jane said, running her detector over the engine. Thor hadn’t dared leave them in the main palace in case it was a decoy, so they had rushed down here in the early morning with hangovers, and now he had asked them to come and inspect the crashed spaceships along with the Asgardian great and wise. Good thing she never went anywhere without the tools of her trade.

“It seems strange, to navigate the stars in boxes,” he said, as a non-reply.

She gave him a lopsided grin. “Humans do it. Can I go inside?”

“Of course.”

People cleared out of the way for the prince of Asgard, and soon she was standing in front of the control console. It was a vertical screen, with a lever in the centre of it and buttons fanning out on the floor each side. Evidently more than one person was meant to operate it.

Something was blinking on one side, and she went over. It was alien tech, but more familiar-looking than anything on Asgard. Carefully she pressed a button. It went down a short way and stuck. A dome appeared above them, with a star map. “That’s... exactly how the sky would look if we weren’t inside,” she muttered, swatting away the unknown Asgardian hand that tried to pull her away. The sounds of Asgardians complaining about reckless primitives faded into the background, and she looked carefully.

Some of the points weren’t stars. They were – “Thor, can you lift me up there?”

Gently he picked her up, and she gave him a distracted smile. The dome wasn’t solid, but it was thick, and she stuck her head in next to one of the strange little points. It was a line, shooting straight through space, and it pulsed slightly.

“You can put me down now.” Back on her feet, she narrowed her eyes at it – if only she had had more time to get used to Asgardian stars. “Where does Yggdrasill run, from here?” He told her, and halfway through she interrupted him. “Where are the other realms?”

“Here, and –” They stared at each other, realising at the same time.

Looking back to the panel of buttons, she muttered, “What are those things?” and sat down to try to work it out. The original button had stopped blinking, but eight of nine buttons in a square in the corner were alight. Jane took a deep breath and pushed one of them. A line shot out and onto the main screen, stopping halfway. From it, strange symbols reeled out. “Those aren’t Asgardian, right?”

“No. That is the Hrathurian script, from Niflheim.”

“Can you read it?”

He frowned. “I have been taught it, but...” Nevertheless, he peered at the screen, face only a few inches away. “Midgard. No – Asgard. Something. Guards – down. Something else. Our guards are mostly fine. I don’t...”

“Are you sure it means ‘guards?’”

“I cannot remember. Try pressing one of the others.”

She picked one at random, and it too emblazoned symbols across the screen. “What’s that?” she asked, craning her neck to see it properly.

“Falugian, from... Alfheim. I can read this better.” Frowning, he ran his fingers along, and suddenly stiffened. Jane reached up to touch his leg, the only part of him she could reach, and could feel the thrumming tension in him. Thunder rolled in the background, and he took a deep breath. It looked like he was forcing himself to speak. “I want a council with all my commanders and counsellors, now. In the long hall. Hogun, find my mother and my father. He is in the Sky Gallery, do whatever you must to bring him, tell him that there is a grave threat to Asgard’s security. Sif, fetch Heimdall if he is not already on his way, I want to know why he has not warned us. Volstagg, root out every guard, every soldier, every warrior we have and get them on duty. Send messengers out to the country to rouse the local forces as well.” For a moment there was utter stillness. “Go!”

When they had all left, he nearly collapsed onto the control panel. “What is it?” she asked.

“My fault.” Mjollnir drooped in his hand.

“Tell me.”

He was silent for a full minute, face looking crushed. Cautiously she laid her hand on her arm. “Asgard was defended from invasion by magics tied to the Bifrost,” he said at last. “Father said he could fix it, but –”

“You did what you had to to save Jotunheim – the blame for that lies with Loki –”

Instead of answering, he stalked out, and she cursed herself. That had been the wrong thing to say, utterly the wrong thing, and she was pretty sure there were tears on his cheeks. “Thor –” she called, but he was nearly out of the hall.

“What did you say to him?” asked Erik.

“You go talk to him, you’re the Thor-whisperer,” she snapped back and started to pack up her equipment. This trip was fast becoming a worse disaster than that first night with Don’s family. At least their home hadn’t been invaded.

Erik joined in, rubbing his head. “My liver can’t take it.”

:::

The sun was dipping below the horizon and Katla had been watching groups of soldiers marching around all day. She huddled into her little alcove, convinced despite herself that they had found out about that bread she’d stolen yesterday; it was unreasonable, but she still couldn’t bring herself to take it out and eat. That fat baker deserved to be stolen from, at his prices, she thought, and wondered what he’d look like sizzling in one of his own ovens.

A light flashed close by, in the west, and she peeked over the wall. East of her was Skinngard and the big tower, but west was normally just dark fields. Not now. There were huge, hulking figures down there, and with every flash, more appeared.

Fear seized her by the throat and she fell down into the road. She tore at the bread – get it eaten before she found soldiers – and started running towards the city. Her bare feet pounded on the road, but there was nobody around, nobody at all.

Where were the soldiers when you needed them? For a moment she contemplated heading to the barracks, but the tower hung large in her mind. The Queen looked kinder than any soldiers – she might even get a meal for her trouble, where the soldiers would just send her on her way. Katla set her sights on the palace, and started running.

The outer gates were guarded, but she had been sneaking around the estates of the rich for years now. With a jump, she caught the lowest branch of a tree and climbed, leaping across to the wall when she reached the top. From there all she had to do was jump and hit the ground running.

Running light-footed around the base of the tower, she tried several doors, but all of them were locked. Eventually she realised that she was going to have to try to get past the soldiers on the main entrance if she wanted to get in.

Was it worth it? It was just possible that they might listen, but then again, they were soldiers and she was a barefoot girl from Vidthorp. Disappointed, she looked for the best way to get out.

As she contemplated, a huge man in golden armour strode out of the door and turned left, hurrying along a footpath in the shadow of the tower. Katla glanced at the motionless soldiers and darted after him; where there was movement, there was opportunity, and being turned away without trying didn’t suit her.

Once, he turned around and she had to flatten herself against the wall and hope. It gave her a good look at him; darker even than her, with eyes an eerie shade of burning gold. For an agonising moment he seemed to stare right at her, but then he turned back. A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth.

A meal seemed out of the question, but now she was in the grounds she might as well satisfy her curiosity, if not her hunger. They re-entered the palace through a concealed side gate between two watercourses and started going up stairs. Before long she regretted her decision; not only did she have to climb, but she had to stop every time he paused so that he could keep thinking that any sound she made was just the creaking of his armour. The gold of the walls focussed her mind far more than the light stone of merchants’ houses.

At last they reached the top. The man in the golden armour strode through a sparking barrier of blue light and it vanished for just long enough that she could nip through. Inside, she ducked behind a bench and looked around.

The room wasn’t a room, but an open gallery at the top of the very highest column of the tower. At the moment it was sparkling with scraps of blue light, which a crumpled old man was weakly pulling to himself and feeding into a hole. Katla’s eyes widened – he had only one eye!

:::

Fandral and Sif looked at the field of hrimthurs before them. Each was big, bigger than any jotunn, and grey. They moved like glaciers, but were as hard to stop or kill; fire was the best weapon, but Gungnir was with Odin and the Destroyer could not be controlled by anyone save the king. “Asgardians are stronger than hrimthurs, aren’t we?” Fandral asked.

“I hope so,” she replied. “Torches – throw!”

A hundred Asgardian soldiers flung torches into the ice giants’ midst. Some went out in the air, some landed on wet grass and went out, but others hit their target. Bellows of pain shook the ground.

“Torches – light!” Each Asgardian had a series of them strapped to their backs; it was as good a preparation as any they could think of. “Torches – throw!”

She repeated the sequence three times, but the supplies were running low and only one hrimthurs was down. Slowly she lit another for herself. “Charge!”

Ahead of the others, she ran straight at the middle of the host and leaped onto a hrimthurs’ back. It flailed slowly as she held the torch to its neck, but she only just had time to stab in the soft spot before another one was reaching for her. She caught its arm on her blade and ducked away, striking at two others.

A hrimthurs fist knocked her over and she only just scrambled aside in time to avoid being crushed by a massive foot. Her torch went out, and she cursed. Swiftly she stood again, approached the nearest Asgardian and wrenched his torch away. Her nearest enemy was to her left – she waved the torch at it and then struck ineffectually. At her side the soldier she’d stolen from loosed a gurgle that sounded like death.

The hrimthurs had stopped advancing, she noticed, but the Asgardians couldn’t push them back. Another interrupted and she ducked away rather than fought. “Disengage, but do not retreat!” she called, and with the others regrouped to a solid line a man’s height from the enemy. “We contain them until Heimdall can get to Odin. If anyone stirs backwards from this line, he dies!”

Beside her, Fandral looked unhappy. “I thought we might establish a camp.”

“I hope there will be no time for that,” she replied. Unless Thor had routed the group he faced, there was no help from that direction. Clearly, ordinary Asgardians could only match hrimthurs, not beat them. Their best hope was Odin, if only he would come.

:::

There were no more ripe apples on the current tree, and she really resented having to switch trees early. No good ever came of it – there was always an emergency just when things ran out. Sighing, Idunn began picking. Future emergencies aside, there was one now, according to the messenger.

Getting them off the tree without damaging them was a delicate task which she entrusted to no-one else. Time after time she climbed up, cut one off carefully, and climbed down. By the time she was done there was a row of eighty-four apples on the bench.

She would need three trays for this lot, so she laid them out at the end ready. Before she could do that, she opened what she called her magic barrel and began stirring it with her fingers. The apples had to wait a bit, but she could make sure that the new ingredients she had powdered and inserted had all broken up properly.

The stars wheeled in the sky, and eventually she judged that it was time. She put thirty apples into the barrel, put the lid on it, and sent her assistant rolling it around the garden while she prepared the oven, shoving the coals angrily. Emergencies always came at the worst times. Bragi was supposed to have come to see her tomorrow, and she had it on good authority that he had asked her father and was planning to propose. It would be just in time, too, because she could feel the baby stirring in her and she needed to be married to him before other people saw the bump. They couldn’t turn her out of here – no-one could make healing stones like she could – but they could make things difficult for her.

Her assistant was done, and she carefully removed the lumps that hid apples and lined them up on the first tray. The next batch went in the barrel as she slid the tray into the oven. They would come out looking like coals, but when they were crushed they could heal any wound. These trees were special, bred by her foremothers for generations, and she had made them better.

The work went on, and so far there was no sign of the emergency.


	3. Chapter 3

“Your majesty,” the man in the golden armour said. He had to say it twice, so absorbed was the Allfather. “My lord!”

The King seemed to jerk awake. “Heimdall! You should be at your post.”

Fear stabbed Katla in the chest. If this was Heimdall, then he knew that she was there – they said he could hear a sparrow fart on Nornheim, of course he could hear her!

“I am here on your son’s orders. Hogun tried to reach you, but was stopped by the barrier. You are sorely needed.”

“I am needed here more, gatekeeper. Thor is a good leader.”

“It is too late, Allfather. The defences are down. We turned back svartalfar this morning, but they signalled our weakness to all the realms, and now there are three forces of hrimthurs outside Skinngard.”

The old man looked down, and the sparkling blue light slipped from his hands. She had seen him a thousand times, doing kingly things, and every time he had seemed upright and regal. Not so now. If this was what he was really like, no wonder Asgard was in trouble, although not half as much trouble as she was as soon as either of them deigned to notice her.

“What is the use of turning them back, if more can reinforce them?”

A growl tore through her stomach and Katla swallowed, waiting to be discovered. Nothing happened. They kept talking.

“What is the use of closing the door behind them? We must deal with them. You have kept what you are doing so quiet that many suspect you are dead.”

Slowly he rubbed his one eye. “I thought I could repair it before any need know it was gone.”

“That has failed, Allfather.”

“I know!” He paused, breathed deeply and stood up, the lines etched like canyons into his face. Katla wondered if they had been carved in by a knife. “How is Thor?”

“He copes, my lord.”

“But not well, I take it.” Frowning, the King stared into the hole. Then he flexed his hands, and sent glowing blue runes flowing through it.

“That is... inadvisable.”

“He is the second-greatest sorcerer on this planet, and must defend us if he wishes to avoid recapture by the Mad Titan. Besides,” he continued, suddenly sounding very old, “he is my son, whether he denies it or not. My sons fight at my side.”

“So you will fight?”

In the blink of an eye, armour appeared on the Allfather’s body, and he picked up a spear. “Your counsel is wise, Heimdall. I have sent the Destroyer to Thor, Loki to Sif and Fandral, and I will go to relieve Hogun and Volstagg myself.” Closing his eyes, he said as though to a distant person, “Unlock the Vault, I am coming down.”

He swept out of the room, energy barrier dissipating, without saying goodbye. She thought she could sneak out for one wild second before Heimdall walked around the bench to face her. In her best frightened-little-girl voice, looking at the ground, she said, “I’m sorry, sir, I was scared... I thought I could get refuge in the palace, there are strange people all around the city, but the guards looked so frightening –”

“I am bound to protect this realm and its king, and once that would have meant killing all intruders. I cannot watch you leave,” he said, and she almost burst into tears until she noticed that he was staring studiously at the Asgardian sky from outside her line of retreat.

Quickly she darted out.

:::

There was no need for the message to tell her that the commonfolk were massing outside the gates; she could see them from the gallery of the throne room. “Will you see them in here?” Saldis asked.

“No – I will go to them.” More important to foster a sense of unity than a sense of royal grandeur, in the current situation. Frigga looked down – would this dress do, or did she have to change? It needed to look just grand enough to be queenly, or they would lose faith, but not too far removed from them. Well, there was no time. It would have to do.

She hurried down and along the long path to the outer gates. It had been built to impress visitors, but she was decidedly unimpressed with its length at the moment. There had not been time to find and dust off her old side saddle, so she had hitched her skirt up and ridden astride, preventing her from making an impressive entrance from horseback.

At the gates she dismounted, rearranged her dress, and swallowed all her doubt. She too had been present at Thor’s hastily-convened conference and heard all the bad news, but it could not show on her face. Asgard was great, and would stay great. They could and would prevail.

The crowd roared as she stepped out. For a moment she felt very small, separated from them only by two or three stairs and one guard on each side – there were other servants with her, though they were all behind – but then she pulled herself upright. She was Frigga Fjorgynsdottir, Queen of Asgard, Allmother. She had fought eldjotnar during the Second Jotunn War when she was a young woman, she had negotiated the peace with Vanaheim, she had birthed a hero and she had ruled Asgard alone in the dark days of the Last Jotunn War while she was pregnant. There was nothing she could not face.

“I will not lie to you,” she said, not raising her voice. A ripple of shushing went through them, and she smiled, letting them see that it was difficult. “There has been an invasion, by belligerents with no legitimate cause, and the situation is grave. I understand you are afraid – I am, too. But my husband and son are fighting, and your husbands and sons and brothers are there too. I have faith that they will come back to me, through the valor of our people. We will win this battle; I have seen what our armies can do with my own eyes, and they can do this, with our help and support.”

Until someone yelled out, “Liar!” she thought it was working. The word unleashed a barrage of shouts, and they didn’t quieten down to hear her speak.

She had not lived with Odin all these years in vain. It took concentration – more than normal – but she managed to get a flash of orange light to call attention back to her. “None of this is lies, I give you my word.” She drew breath to continue, shutting down the litany of unkind thoughts that ran _he tells the lies and I pick up the pieces, again and again._ At least this crowd probably couldn’t attempt destruction of the balance of Yggdrasill.

Someone spoke before she managed to. “All of that about loyalty to the soldiers is lies. Where was that when Odin Allfather cut off the people who followed his bad decisions so that we cannot even feed our children?”

She could ignore him – she wanted to – but there were things you could not do, and one of them was neglect to answer a direct challenge. “Which war did you fight?” she asked, looking straight at him.

“The Second Svartalf War.”

“There were no orders given that were out of the ordinary regarding fighters in that war, including those in the Garnator Mission.” That had to be the right one, that was the biggest disaster of the war. “If there was any cutting off, it was not my king’s doing; whoever did it, I personally assure you, will confess and make reparation.”

“Will do me no good,” the man spat, but her knowledge, her attention had sent the mood shifting away from him. Good.

A guard hurried up through the crowd and leaned in close. “Elves, my queen. North of the city. You had best withdraw.”

“Are there defenders to match them?”

“The Allfather is fighting, but he is only half-done with the hrimthurs.”

“Then I shall organise Skinngard’s defence.”

:::

Hooves thundered on the ground and Sif spared a quick glance at the road. “Asgardians back!” she screamed and started running, leaving the hrimthurs rapidly in her wake. Three times they had had to close and fight again since they established the lines, even while fire and lightning and magic seared the sky from beyond the mountains. Finally, it looked like this battle could be ended.

She stumbled and someone grabbed her to pick her up. As she fell, she saw other Asgardians still fighting. “Asgard! Back!” she called again, but if they wouldn’t listen then – they had only themselves to blame.

Odin Allfather, sitting astride Sleipnir, met her eyes as she hurtled past him. He waited a bit longer, until the hrimthurs were only a short distance away and most of the Asgardians were clear, and then made some hand gestures. In his hands a bright blue cube appeared, emitting light and a humming, buzzing sound that made her clamp her hands over her ears.

Originally she had stopped only a man’s height behind him, but now she scrambled backwards, desperately. The Tesseract – even in the hands of mortals its destructive power was incalculable. In the hands of an Asgardian sorcerer –

Odin hoisted Gungnir aloft and held it out with one hand, resting its near end on the cube. For a second he closed his eyes and the air exploded in front of him. Each hrimthurs was torn apart into nothingness by the sheer power of the magics, fire and sorcery weaving together a tapestry of death in a single stroke. She gasped.

While her eyes were still singing with the interplay of blue and fiery gold, Odin rode up beside her. “Where is Loki?”

“Wherever you sent him, Allfather,” she replied, frowning.

“I sent him here! I hardly expected to find you fighting hand to hand.”

“My king, he has not been here.” Where was Fandral? He had always been better at talking to Odin than she was, being unhampered with the burdens of womanhood as a warrior.

She shifted her hand on her weapon, frowning. He had released a traitor, who had promptly done the predictable thing and betrayed them all – even Thor could have foreseen that! But Odin had never appreciated his nobles talking back to him, so she held her tongue and started running through ways Thor might be able to usurp his father unnoticed.

The pounding of hooves told her that he was gone, and she called, “Fandral!”

“Here I am.”

“Did you hear?”

:::

Loki had been just about to give up for a nap when the runes had floated through to him. _Hrimthurs west of Vidthorp. Go. Fight with the defenders, or there will be consequences._ Twice he read them, scarcely believing, and then let out a bitter guffaw of laughter. They thought they could keep him caged up here, doing their dirty work, and then unleash him on their enemies like some mad dog?

Hrimthurs, though. Jotnar by another name and another colour... He snorted again, even more bitterly. Odin knew his business. Even if they hadn’t been hrimthurs, there was a long chain of _Odin knew that Loki knew_ that ended with the fact that on his own, Loki was toast. It felt like a knife in the gut, constantly wriggling around to hit every tender place he had, but there was no choice.

When he stood up, his limbs felt like lead and his eyes burned. Ever since his encounter with the green abomination from Midgard, his spine and knees had cracked slightly as he moved – it should have been impossible, it would have been impossible if he’d been who he was meant to be! Knuckles white, he began summoning the energy for the journey.

His mind was bringing it in from the skies above Asgard when something whistled past, and he changed the numbers in his destination calculation hurriedly. Hrimthurs moved slowly, any Asgardian could at least outrun them until magical help showed up. Elves, on the other hand, were quick, and it wasn’t as though Odin could think less of him.

Tired though he was, it took seconds to reach Skinngard. One look confirmed his suspicions – alfar had landed north of the city, and were unloading. Already a defence was taking shape, and it sounded like his mother – no, Frigga – was directing it, but it wouldn’t be enough. None of it would be enough, and Stark had never given him that drink. Too much to hope that these would even offer, if they won.

Asgard was laid wide open. There had been at least two sets of invaders already, and the Asgardians were already overstretched. The realm had never been meant for defence – they had always been the attackers, searing through alien skies in the Bifrost to conquer and pillage and rule, they were rulers, and now the lesser species were despoiling the great centre of that ancient power –

Loki knew better than most how tough a bite a lesser being could have, though. And now more than ever, he felt dislocated. On Midgard, surrounded by humans, even he could be a god. Even he. He looked at the elves flooding down the hillsides. They were savages, of course, but not inconsiderable. They could hurt Asgard – his fists clenched and he looked up. If Asgard was falling, he should try the next greatest power – Vanaheim or Muspellheim. But they were nothing to this shining land. Even he, a monster, could see that. And there might be a way, even now, to find refuge here... “Damn Odin!”

:::

The baby vomited in her hair, and Valka nearly hit her sister when she laughed. There had been nothing but objections and calming words of, ‘I’m sure it’s not that bad,’ since she had sought refuge in her sister’s barracks home. They weren’t even anywhere safe now – they were out on the outskirts of town going about Fasta’s daily business, and she was carrying her sister’s obnoxious, spoiled infant. At least her children were safely in the middle of their uncle’s unit.

A crackling in the sky made her look up, and then she grabbed Fasta. “Now do you believe me?”

“What is that?”

“The same as the thing that I told you had landed! They should not be able to do this. Come on, we have to get back.”

“No, I want to see, give me Agni.”

At least she didn’t have to carry the child. “Fasta, this is not a market brawl!” Sighing, Valka dashed down the street to catch up as tall, alien creatures started pouring out of the capsules on the hillside to the north.

A flash of green-gold light stopped her in her tracks – magic? If so, the person had more skill than she did. Fasta had skidded out of sight, and after a moment’s contemplation she went to find them.

It wasn’t difficult; the source of the magic was standing stock-still, transfixed by the events on the hillside. He looked familiar – by the time she realised why, he had seen her, and she almost screamed. Chains breaking, Asgard attacked – how hadn’t she known this? How hadn’t she been warned?

“Come to gawp?” he spat.

“No! No.” Would he let her go? She tried backing away.

He raised a hand, making her flinch further back. “Why are you here?”

“I saw the light of the magic and hoped whoever made it would know what was happening. The magic here is… disturbed. I do not know when it happened.” Her heart was hammering.

Loki, disgraced prince of Asgard, laughed. It was hollow, with no mirth in it, and when he spoke the words dripped with venom. “Of course it is, your beloved leader Thor saw to that when he broke the Bifrost, and with it, every defence Asgard has!”

From Valka’s left, someone screamed. She looked around just in time to see Fasta sprinting away, hand clapped over her mouth. It was the jolt she had needed to move, to start running, and she was three steps behind when her sister threw herself at the first person she saw, clutching him and yelling about the magical defences being gone.

There were a lot of people flooding the roads, heading north – there even seemed to be some direction to it, given the palace servants running around giving orders – and there were a lot of people within earshot of the outburst. A muttering ran through the crowd.

Shortly afterwards, the first stone was thrown.

Shortly after that, Valka felt the vibrations of a power source beyond anything she had ever known, and fled.

:::

Jane smiled anxiously at the woman who seemed to be organising the chaos. The Healing Room had overflowed long since, and now Asgardian wounded were stretched out in the Dragon Hall. “Hi – is Thor here?”

The reply was shot at her in passing. “Far end, by the door.”

“Thanks,” she said to the retreating back, and hurried over. “Thor! The defences that led into the Bifrost are disrupted and thinned, and then all the dark energy is flooding back out of the broken end of the bridge. I think I can see how to set my detector up to alert you to any new invasion, you can see it now if you want, but I’ll need a power source...”

“Thank you.” He didn’t seem hurt, although there was a tattered chunk taken out of his cape; he was kneeling next to a semi-conscious Volstagg, looking worried. “Father has gone to fight the hrimthurs, and when I returns I will have him send you, and Erik Selvig, and Darcy, home. It is not fair to involve you in this.”

For a moment, it felt like she’d been slapped. Then she bent down, grabbed his face and turned it towards her. “No. You’re not sending me home like my work’s not important. I may not be out on the battlefield hitting things, but I’ve nearly done with the detector and I think I know how to build a machine to trap all this stuff like it used to be. Send Erik and Darcy if you must – you’d better send Darcy, I... borrowed her from her university for this – but I am not leaving, I –”

“I will not let any harm come to –” Abruptly he stopped, and his brows furrowed. “You know how to get the defences back up?”

“Yes! I’ve been telling you!”

Before she had a chance to explain that she needed time, she needed a very specific list of ingredients and someone who was skilled with a forge in the absence of parts factories, he had leaped to his feet and embraced her. “May I?” he said, leaning in, and their lips met. “You are wonderful, Jane – I do not know how we can ever repay you...”

“Well, you can start by getting me what I need,” she began, but was interrupted by Sif striding in, looking as though she would split stones with the force of her wrath.

“What has happened?” Thor asked, all his momentary joy gone.

Sif glanced around the room. “You’d better come out.” Jane followed them and stayed as the other woman began to talk, since neither of them ordered her back. “Your father has unleashed Loki upon the realm and managed to lose him. He was ordered to fight with me and Fandral, but he never came. Not only that, but when the rebellion started –”

“There is a rebellion?”

“There was a rebellion. Now, there are a lot less Asgardians than there were. He turned the Tesseract on them, Thor!”

“He – why?”

Jane turned away. Something in Thor was crumbling, she could feel thunder shaking the tower, and it felt like this was not hers to watch. The detector on her back was getting heavy. With a sigh, she placed it on the floor and watched, horrified, as sparks crawled up onto it from the floor. Then she looked more closely, and noticed that they were charging it She had set it up so that it could channel lightning to the batteries, knowing that Asgard didn’t do power points, but that it could work off the force of Thor’s fury channelled through the floor –

“I must see him. And Loki.” His voice was hollow, but determined, and she barely had time to pick the detector up before he was hurrying along the corridor.

“I’ll take it,” Sif said. “The sparks do not hurt me.”

“Thanks.”

As they rushed down corridors and stairs, they found themselves passing Darcy’s quarters. She stuck her head out. “Hey, what’s the rush?”

“Not now!” Jane panted, but it was no use.


End file.
